BC2035: How best to deal with B.C.'s soaring energy demands?

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The need for electricity in British Columbia could jump by 50 per cent in 20 years, without taking into account conservation, BC Hydro believes.

The provincial Crown corporation is counting on its Site C Dam along the Peace River to supply some of that power, and hopes the $7.9-billion dam — which still has to go through the environmental process — will be generating electricity by 2021. It has taken decades to get to this stage; it was chosen as a potential dam site in 1976 and rejected in the 1980s and early 1990s by previous governments on the premise the province did not need the power.

Now — with new mines opening throughout the province, and three liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in the northwest — Site C is needed, the province says.

“If you look at what the need is for LNG alone and then we also have a number of mines coming onstream, we probably need 25 per cent more power than we have in B.C. today to meet future needs,” Energy and Mines Minister Rich Coleman said.

Approval not guaranteed

Situated just east of Fort St. John and downstream from the W.A.C. Bennett and Peace Canyon dams, Site C will have a capacity of 1,100 megawatts, making it the province’s fourth-largest dam. W.A.C. Bennett is the province’s largest dam, with 2,730 MW of capacity.

Coleman is “pretty comfortable” the province will be able to generate the power needed.

Two of BC Hydro’s dams — the Mica and Revelstoke — are being expanded to add another 2,000 MW of power. And new run-of-river projects in the north should help fuel the LNG plants in the Kitimat area, Coleman said.

BC Hydro has $14 billion worth of projects, either recently completed or in the implementation or planning stage, according to a provincial review last June.

That amount of work is needed in part because BC Hydro’s generating facilities are, on average, 50 years old. While significant investments were made in the 1950s through to about 1984, when the Revelstoke Dam was built, little has been done since then, according to the provincial review. By comparison, Hydro-Quebec built 20 generating facilities between 1971 and 2010.

Whether or not the energy is needed, Site C may have trouble getting approval given the opposition. The biggest issue is the flooding of lands in the area. BC Hydro has said the dam will flood 5,340 hectares of land, including 360 hectares of private land.

Given the silty nature of the banks of the Peace River, the Treaty 8 Tribal Association, which represents five first nations in northeastern B.C. — Doig River, Halfway River, Prophet River, Saulteau and West Moberly — worries that erosion will cause even more land to disappear over time.

“This is one of the last pristine areas left for our members to go and exercise their rights because the rest of the territory is just inundated with oil and gas, mining [and] forestry,” said Liz Logan, the association’s tribal chief. “And there’s really no place for us to go any more out in the territory.”

Logan said one of the chiefs who signed Treaty 8 is buried along the banks of the river.

“Not only those remains will be affected, but there are stories and legends that our people have told over and over and those are linked to specific areas in that valley and in the islands in the river,” she said.

“So what happens to our legends and stories when you can’t really go out and tell your grandchildren about those areas when they are not even there any more?”

Eighty-five per cent of the tribal association’s members are against Site C, Logan said.

“B.C. is saying that Site C is going to happen. Well, as far as we’re concerned, we’re going to fight it to the bitter end,” she said.

NDP opposes dam

The NDP is also against Site C.

“Our biggest concern is the alienation of agricultural land, ... dealing with first nations and dealing with the downstream effects,” said NDP energy critic John Horgan.

The NDP supports the environmental assessment “and if it determines that Site C is the next best option, then we’ll have to reconsider our policy,” Horgan said.

“But today we don’t believe we need the energy at that point. It’s a long way from the load centre and there are other alternatives that may be more cost effective and also less environmentally intrusive.”

Those alternatives include conservation and relying on the spot market, where prices right now are substantially less than the $100 to $120 per megawatt hour that BC Hydro is paying independent power producers and the $87 to $95 Site C electricity is expected to cost.

Marc Lee, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, questions whether the province should generate power to fuel industries that are causing climate change.

Demand is flat for residential consumers and commercial businesses like retailers, and that’s true even with a growing population as new, more efficient technologies offset growing demand, Lee said.

So all the new demand is coming from industries, particularly new mines and new oil and gas facilities.

And those industries, which often pay less for electricity than residential customers, are the ones causing climate change, Lee said. So the province is better off without them.

If the province does need a new supply of power, it should be renewable, Lee said, so he wouldn’t rule out Site C in the future.

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